Image Source: Forbes Africa
Local – Luke Lamprecht, co-founder of Fight With Insight, is calling on the government to prioritise the creation of safe spaces for children, warning that a lack of male role models and structured programmes in the city is pushing vulnerable boys toward gangs and harmful online influences.
Lamprecht said his Johannesburg-based boxing and life skills programme worked to give young men a sense of belonging that many were not finding at home or in their communities, describing the need as fundamental to how children develop.
“We know the need to become and belong are things that are completely inherent in kind of human nature, but your environment determines how you become and where you belong.”
Reactive Government Funding
Lamprecht said national and local governments needed to invest in preventive spaces where children could play safely and access consistent adult mentorship, rather than responding only once a child was already in crisis.
He argued that current funding structures favoured reactive interventions, leaving programmes aimed at early prevention chronically under-resourced despite offering a far greater long-term return.
“The biggest challenge with government funding is that it’s reactive. So if you provide a service for something where children are already hurt, there’s lots of funding because the children are hurt, and there’s mandatory reporting, and there are laws etc. I don’t think there is anywhere near enough investment in the places that allow people to be to prevent the things that we need to respond to.”
Unlocking Youth Potential
Despite the funding gap, Lamprecht said Fight With Insight had produced significant results by working intensively with a smaller group of young people over many years, rather than spreading resources thinly across the city.
He said numerous participants had since completed their education, found stable employment and returned to the programme to mentor others in their communities.
“Success for me is that most of these children are allowed to unlock the potential that is buried in poverty. Poverty buries potential. So if you give people a place to become and you allow them to be okay enough with who they are now while they’re working out who they are going to become, you have these extraordinary young people who emerge from it.”
